Although advertising is the strongest part of print magazine publishers’ revenues streams, that area has been weakening for some time. In its place, publishers have pinned massive hopes on the ability of e-commerce features to help make up for declining ad dollars. According to a study from industry trade group The Association of Magazine Media (aka The MPA), says that digital subscribers are very interested in the ability to make impulse purchases within their magazine apps.

To be sure, the MPA’s stats sound very encouraging about the acceptance of e-commerce as part of digital magazines’ ads. But what the study doesn’t — or, perhaps can’t — say is how active would these interested buyers be? Or, at what price would most purchases be made? On top of that, it’s not clear what kind of affiliate revenue split from sales within a magazine ad be most likely.

It will certainly take a while to answer those questions, but for now, the idea that consumers may at the very least be demanding the means to buy advertisers’ products within their apps is surely comforting to the industry, which is starting to experience greater pullback in spending from marketers’ nervous about economic uncertainty in the new year.

The study was conducted on behalf of the MPA by research firm Affinity of 75,000 pre-screened magazine readers who access content from an app, a tablet or an e-reader. The survey netted a total of 1,009 mobile magazine readers who completed the online questionnaire, telling the researcher:

— 59 percent want the ability to buy directly from ads
— 70 percent stated that they want to be able to purchase products and services directly from editorial features.
— 73 percent typically engage with digital magazine ads

The study also looked over other topics, such as the desire for more electronic newsstands (76 percent) as well as the ability to easily find specific titles to download (79 percent), which has certainly advanced since the time the survey was taken (the dates are not specified). Consumers (82 percent of respondents) are even interested in including a gift card pre-loaded with a digital.

But one thing that they’re not so excited about? Long-form online video: 70 percent want videos in digital editions to run less than a minute, no longer. Release